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In the most bloody match in the history of the Sirens, my Amazon-team just destroyed the Brolaf Brigade, the first team they ever lost to, in a horrendous 2:0 featuring a total of four deaths (1 Amazon, 3 Norths) and six injuries (2 Amazons, 4 Norths), in the constant pouring rain. This secures me the third place in Division A and narrowly avoids a downgrade.

I will write a dirge for the slain northmen at one point.

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In the most bloody match in the history of the Sirens, my Amazon-team just destroyed the Brolaf Brigade, the first team they ever lost to, in a horrendous 2:0 featuring a total of four deaths (1 Amazon, 3 Norths) and six injuries (2 Amazons, 4 Norths), in the constant pouring rain. This secures me the third place in Division A and narrowly avoids a downgrade.

I will write a dirge for the slain northmen at one point.

Truly your revenge was comprehensive. By the end of the match I was down to two players on the pitch (my Yeti and an Ulfwerener). My injury box looked a little something like this (click to en-biggen):

The sheer number of rolls that went horribly wrong for me is difficult to recount. After many seasons early in my career handing out similar punishment to other teams, and a few seasons of going toe-to-toe with tougher opponents and surviving (if not doing particularly well), I finally got my comeuppance. Fortunately, I had already been considering rerolling, so this disastrous slaughter only served to push me over the edge. I've not yet decided for certain what I'll be rebooting to, but the once-meteoric rise of the Brolafs is officially over. My thanks to VV for at least making it a quick and decisive end. :P

ntw and I met up yesterday for the Division E championship match! No inducements, since the teams had almost-equal TV. But the Lycanthropes had the edge, as they only needed a tie to secure their promotion, while Insert Witty Team Name Here (henceforth IWTNH) needed an outright win.

The match started off with the Lycanthropes receiving, in pouring rain; they moved for a right-side cage, and the two teams met up about the halfway line. Some light punching, until ntw rolled double skulls -> reroll -> double skulls on his first move of turn three. The Lycanthropes were in generous base contact, so they hammered their way through on the opportunity, getting a complete cage behind the skaven line and causing two KOs to boot. The necros continued to make great armor rolls, KO'ing another two rats as they parked the ball on the endzone and stalled for time. But with the entire skaven team KO'd or sleeping by the end of the first quarter, the Lycanthropes didn't have the heart to stall four whole turns, and ran in a TD, giving IWTNH four whole turns to try and equalize.

The second quarter opened with IWNTH's KOs mostly waking up, and his team massing on the line; they promptly knocked down the necros and sent a gutter runner on through for a scoring threat. The skaven kept in the middle of the field, trying to block the Lycanthropes in their own half while a thrower sat in the backfield with the ball. But a werewolf ran his way around to mark up the ball-carrier, prompting them to blitz him off and make the passing play. The waiting gutter runner made the catch and promptly tied the match with two turns left in the half. The Lycanthropes tried (halfheartedly) to engineer a pass-to-the-werewolf two-turner, but to no avail, and the half ended at a tie.

Both teams returned for the second half at full strength. IWTNH used the same strategy as before, throwing seven players on the line of scrimmage to bash their way through. And they did bash their way through, knocking down five necros, and squeaking a GR into the backfield to be the scoring threat. But the Lycanthropes matched the aggressive offense with aggressive defense. They made some risky GFIs, and marked up the ball carrier with both WWs, before putting a line of wights and ghouls in between the skaven line and their distant thrower. The skaven successfully threaded their way through though, with a pass to a gutter runner, who then ran the ball backfield to the would-be scorer. But the backfield GR failed his catch, putting the ball on the ground and giving the Lycanthropes a chance. Some zombies, a wight, and a ghoul scrambled back to the ball, KOing one GR in the process; and the other failed his pick-up the next turn, enabling a ghoul to get his grubby hands on it. At this point (turn 11), the Lycanthropes were feeling good; they had possession and a slight numbers advantage, and only needed to prevent another IWTNH score to win the division. The necros advanced with a loose cage, while IWTNH kept trying to get rats free to hit the ball carrier. And they did, twice, successfully bringing the ball-ghoul down in turn 16. The ball went off-field, but the throw-in was in the Lycanthropes favor - into the corner right by IWTNH's endzone, right next to where the ball carrier had been standing before. So the match concluding with said ghoul standing up, picking up the ball, and then running in the touchdown.

Final Score: Insert Witty Team Name Here 1 - 2 Lucky Lycanthropes
An excellent match from ntw! The dice did seem to go my way in key moments, certainly with his failed catch in the second half. I had been expecting to be playing catch-up for the last quarter, rather than making a leisurely six-turn drive. His skaven were a ruthless scoring threat (especially since I had no tackle), and if he'd made that catch it would've been a very different match.

Truly your revenge was comprehensive. By the end of the match I was down to two players on the pitch (my Yeti and an Ulfwerener). My injury box looked a little something like this (click to en-biggen):

The sheer number of rolls that went horribly wrong for me is difficult to recount. After many seasons early in my career handing out similar punishment to other teams, and a few seasons of going toe-to-toe with tougher opponents and surviving (if not doing particularly well), I finally got my comeuppance. Fortunately, I had already been considering rerolling, so this disastrous slaughter only served to push me over the edge. I've not yet decided for certain what I'll be rebooting to, but the once-meteoric rise of the Brolafs is officially over. My thanks to VV for at least making it a quick and decisive end. :P

Norsemen, they'll always* let you down in the end. They just don't have enough armour, and once other teams catch up with you in the block race and get a little guard you've lost your big advantage. Flat track bullies, the Norse, just like Amazons*.

(*and like a great deal of received wisdom, this is generally true but not always. Drawlien's terrifying Amazons left a trail of mangled enemies on their way to winning the Open a couple of seasons ago, in exactly the kind of developed, mid-high TV league that Amazons 'never' do well in)

They have a nice simple game plan if you're a beginner - get some catchers down the pitch while keeping your thrower back, get one of your catchers unmarked, throw ball to catcher, touchdown. Speaking as someone who had a Dark Elf team in Division B for a lot of seasons, I still don't understand how that team is meant to work.

I'd suggest making another High Elf team and entering it into the Naggaroth open league, in the week or so til this season ends. Get a couple of games in, learn the ropes of the team, get your mistakes out of the way early :)

Apologies for the monster post, but for the benefit of the newbies, this is a very thorough guide to fixing connectivity issues. I've got a new PC so I've had to go through this again. It's robbed from another user on another forum, but perhaps ntw can set it up in the spreadsheet as reference?

Avoiding Connection Problems.

Ok geezers, I have written this lil√Ę‚‚¨‚„Ębit to hopefully help those of you who are having problems connecting in multiplayer.

First of all this guide will change settings on your computer and will be done manually. There are programs that can automate the procedures but I have had mixed results when using them. When done manually I have had pretty much 100 percent success. (Again though there is always a firsttime for failure and nothing is guaranteed.)

Secondly and most importantly √Ę‚‚¨‚€œ Always record any changes you make. If you write down any changes that you make, you can then always change them back in the event of something going wrong. This is especially true when setting your IP address (as will become apparent later), changing your network settings can mean you lose internet access, if you record the changes you make you can just enter the old values and easily get back on the net.

There are three major steps in helping to avoid connection problems and these are:

The above page has a list of guides to follow depending on what Operating System you use, select the guide that corresponds to your setup.

When you choose an IP Address to set as static it is a good idea to choose a number that is a few higher than what your computer would normally be assigned. For instance if your computer is usually 192.168.0.1, then use 192.168.0.5 or something similar. This will help when you test to seeif your Static IP has indeed remained Static. If you use the original number (192.168.0.1) and you have only one device working on the network (i.e. your computer) then when testing it may not be clear if it is working or not. (Also please remember to only change the number following the third decimal point, changing the others will result in failure.)

To test if the Static IP Address is working, do the following:

1. Reboot your computer and Router.2. Then do either 1) start>run and type cmd or 2) start>all programs>accessories and press the cmd icon.3. In the black box that should appear type ipconfig and press enter. 4. Look for the entry that says IPv4 Address √Ę‚‚¨‚€œ if this Address is the same as the Static IP that you have assigned then you knowit is working.

STEP 2 √Ę‚‚¨‚€œ PortForwarding.

Your router has a hardware firewall that protects your network and computer from attack.

The reason we need PortForwarding is so that your router will let Blood bowl send and receive information through its hardware firewall (to the server and to your opponent√Ę‚‚¨‚„Ęs computer). A common problem with connection problems is that the router itself is blocking the game from sending and receiving information.

Now that you have a Static IP Address you can setup your PortForwarding. To do this properly you will need the following.

1. The Static IP Address that you created.2. Your router make and model.3. The Port numbers that Blood Bowl uses to communicate with your computer, these are:

9103 UDP 9103 TCP16962 UDP 16962 TCP30710 UDP 30710 TCP

It has been said that TCP Port numbers are not needed, but in the past I have had problems enabling only the UDP ports and when I enabledthe TCP ports as well it worked perfectly. I must stress though that this may just be just coincidence and I have no idea why this was the case.

I have also encountered problems when combining TCP and UDP ports under the same PortForwarding rule. By this I mean that some routersallow you to forward a Port number in UDP and TCP under the same rule and therefore instead of creating two rules (one for UDP and one for TCP) you just create the one rule (for both).

As I have had problems combining the rules, I create a separate rule for both TCP and UDP; this means I have 6 separate rules. This way I have had no problems.

Always remember that when you create a rule you forward it to your Static IP Address.

The information I have just given you may seem confusing but all will become clear (hopefully) when you follow the instructions.

The following link has a massive list of Port forwarding guides for different routers. Find the guide that corresponds to your routermake and model and follow the instructions. (If you come across an advertisement you close it by clicking the X in the top right of the screen,you will then be taken to the guide.)

You are most probably running a software firewall on your computer or using the windows firewall itself. These can often cause problemswhen trying to connect in multiplayer.

Similar to the hardware firewall in your router, the software firewall maybe blocking incoming and outgoing communications.

The way to get around this is to create Port exceptions for the Port numbers that were used in Step 2. You can also create an Exception forthe program Blood Bowl LE. The way this will be done is different for every firewall and instructions for that can be found on the relevant websites.

There are some things to remember when using or setting up you software firewall for use with Blood Bowl.

Firstly, turning off your firewall does not mean that the ports that are needed will be automatically open. Some firewalls will actually close down ports if they are switched off. Switching off a firewall also can put your computer at risk from attack. For these reasons it is always best toproperly configure your firewall for use with Blood Bowl instead of turning the firewall off.

Secondly, when creating your Firewall exception rules, create separate rules for each Port number and protocol type as you did when you set up the PortForwarding. (Remember you can create an exception for the Blood Bowl program as well in a software firewall.)

Thirdly, when creating your rules make sure you allow incoming and outgoing communications. This way your Firewall will allow you tosend and receive information. Sometimes when connecting to multiplayer you may find that if you issue the challenge you connect fine, but if someone challenges you it does not connect. This happens when your firewall is allowing you to send the challenges (outgoing communication) and connect but it is blocking your computer from receiving challenges (Incoming communications).

Lastly, some third party firewalls will actually control the windows firewall as well (Mcaffee for example), so keep an eye out for that.

Ok now you have done all you can, but you may still get problems because your opponent has not, that being said you should have amassive improvement when trying to connect.

Speaking as someone who had a Dark Elf team in Division B for a lot of seasons, I still don't understand how that team is meant to work.

I like to go with a full set of jump up blodgers, even without extra skills an elf is a scoreing threat and with jump up they can keep throwing blocks even from the ground (and don't lose movement geting up as well of course).

Your opponent can't concentrate of getting rid of key opponents like in most teams and this increases the chances of them overlooking a potential play you have.

The accountant took a moment to compose himself outside of the players’ tent. He’d been charged with taking a few moments out of counting the Sovereigns’ ridiculous piles of money in order to calculate what division the team might be promoted to. It had taken 3 days, and the invention of a new form of mathemagic, but he finally had an answer; one he was not too eager to present to the team.

Still, he could not delay forever, and so pushed back the gilded tent flaps and began the long process of getting all of the Sovereigns to focus on something that did not involve wine or money. A few minutes later, and they were all gathered around, and ready to hear the glorious news.

“So?”, demanded the captain. “What are we up against?”

“Well...erm... It seems there may have been a slight mistake in the initial signing. After taking a close look, it seems that there are teams that aren’t elves in some of the other divisions.”

“Well of course, my good man!” All the team had a jolly good laugh for a moment at the accountant’s stupidity before the captain continued. “Got to have some halflings in there to handle the food. And a team or two of humans can’t pose too much of a threat. Got to let the peasants have their fun!”

“Just so, your grace. But there are others too. Like...orcs. And amazons. And chaos. And...even...” Here the accountant lowered his voice to a whisper, barely daring to speak the dreaded words. “Even dwarves, your grace.”

Eleven elven mouths simultaneously spit out their wine, spluttering in shock. Desperate to avoid a panic, the captain quickly shouted them down, “We’ll just have to swallow our pride! Take a loss, stay where we are. It’s good and comfortable right here.”

“Unfortunately, your grace... That’s just not possible. The way the division scores have come out, we cannot help but be promoted, even if we lose the next match.”

“Bah! When have facts had anything to do with reality? Who do we have to pay to stay where we are?”

“I believe it’s some groovy fanatic, but that might not help too much either. There is a Khemri team being promoted from the lower divisions.”

Silence reigns for a few long moments. “So... Dwarves, you say?”
And now, on with the match report!

I'm writing this from memory at work the next day, so I'll likely get details wrong. Apologies.

I entered the match with my work half done for me. The Wood Elf treeman had been killed by halflings in their first match of the season, and the wardancer was taken out by our high elf cousins in the second match. This meant that the Wood Elves that entered the field last night consisted of mostly linemen (of which a good 3 or 4 were mercenaries), 1 thrower, and 1 catcher with only 6 armour.

With his luck starting as he meant to continue, Prester John lost the toss, and I chose to receive. Despite a fumbled pass (for that last dastardly SPP) in my very first turn, I quickly caged up and invited the wood elves to come and have a go if they thought they were hard enough. They did, and before too long there were a good 4 less wood elves on the pitch, mostly KO's, but one injury due to a failed dodge.

I honestly debated whether to stall and play like a much slower team, since I feared the lightning fast wood elves, but eventually decided to score in turn 5 and cross my fingers. Clearly Nuffle approved of the gesture and decided to keep every single elf asleep, so I kept my numerical advantage.

Nearly able to put 2 men on every 1 of his, any wood elf scoring threat was shut down, but Prester John was still able to persistently keep the ball out of Sovereign hands. The first half ended 1-0 to me.

The second half was more of the same, with the wood elves always outnumbered and never able to field more than 7 players at the start of a drive. I'm not sure I ever actually scored an injury, but I think there were 3 off injured by the end of the game through missed dodges and GFIs and never less than 3KOs at a time. It's also worth noting at this point that no high elf ever suffered worse than a stun (and that was rare too). The induced wizard was spent to hit a threatening high elf with lightning around 11, but only succeeded in knocking him down without even a stun. I scored again around turn 13, and a few wood elves woke up this time, but I'd thrown some more off in the meanwhile.

Not to go down without a fight, Prester John zipped a pair of wood elves down the left side of the pitch, moving to a couple of squares away from my endzone in turn 15. I burnt a reroll to knock him down, and the ball rolled off the pitch, to be thrown back onto the right side, just on my line. I'd already moved most of my players, so I shuffled a few around to threaten picking up the ball in the next turn but couldn't do too much.

Likewise Prester John had no players in scoring range, but did have one player that could make 2 GFIs to pick up the ball.

My final turn, and I'm ready to just hit End Turn without trying to add injury to insult. After all, I've won 2-0 up. It was a fun game, but I'd known I was winning the division before going in, and I suspect Prester John knew he was retiring the team so neither of us were....

Wait just a minute...

I can score... I can score!

I move one lineself next to the wood elf ball carrier. My blitzer makes a dodge and a go-for-it (rerolled) to blitz him down. The ball luckily rolls a square up the pitch, and not into the hands of either of the elves that moved already. Another lineself makes a dodge and a go-for-it to pickup the ball.

He then turns around and attempts a Not-At-All-Using-Performance-Enhancing-Magic 5+ pass. Perfect Launch! Perfect Catch! The receiving lineself runs towards my final target; a blitzer standing just 7 squares away from the touchdown endzone, so not even a GFI needed if I can get the ball into his hands.

The lineself makes the GFI to stand next to the blitzer, and holds the ball out for the handoff... which rolls onto the ground, ending the turn and the game. Ah well, I had more than my fair share of luck this season!

Sovereign Right 2 - 0 Beauty and the Beast

I had a fun first season, and also ridiculously fantastic luck. Good luck to all my previous opponents and hello to my future ones!

'All we have to do is win our last game, and hope we've pipped that damnable Sponge on casualties'

'We have been pleasantly violent this season, that should be fine'

'Yeah, bashy'

'Yeah'.

So off we went. Lowkey with his undead vs. my (bashy) humans.

I opt to receive, hoping to terrorise his 4 ghouls into dying. This strategy doesn't really work, and a blizzard means that my usual 'run catchers forward as a receiving threat' is a lot less useful than usual (short throw is the longest allowed). But still, mighty blow, eh? I bash down lowkey's players, and he bashes back. I manage the mummies ok, but by turn 6, I'm pinned up against the sideline, having caused a grand total of 2 Casualties (one regenned). I dodge away, throw a perfect pass short to Harley Quinn (my catcher), who gets promptly knocked down and badly hurt next turn. But I'm still on the ball. I bash people away then try to pick up with Bullseye, my thrower, who fails the pick, even with sure hands. It IS cold, I need to buy him some gloves. Luckily, lowkey fails the dodge away after successfully grabbing the ball. I successfully pick the ball up, hand off to Professor Zoom (my other catcher), who needs one dodge to score. Which fails, to end the half. Bugger. Not terrible, 2 CAS scored, one regenerated vs. my one badly hurt and my guard blitzer remaining KO'd. I'll be fine.

Kicking off to lowkey, the blizzard remains. My linemen get bashed, and one immediately goes down badly hurt. Urgh. I try to pressure the line, leaving his cage in his side of the field. Push push push push. Urgh. Double skull. Reroll. Push. Urgh. Next turn, my ogre gets KOd. Urgh. 9 players on the pitch, missing my most experienced/strongest players. Lowkey has a lot of guard by comparison, and 2 str5 players. I run a rolling defence, but turn 13, all he needs is one dodge and one GFI (in the blizzard, so 3+ needed). He makes the dodge, then needs a reroll to get the GFI... which passes. Right, 3 turns to score.

Lowkey kicks very short (even with a kicker?). None of my good players have returned, I only have 10 on the pitch and need to score fast. I touch back to my blitzer who was standing on the line, and run 7 squares into lowkey's half (Lowkey's only mistake was leaving the wings wide open for me). Professor zoom looks to protect him (Str 2 levels of protection!) whilst everyone else marks up the players. Only one ghoul is free. One manages to dodge away and mark up, so the free ghoul gets a one dice. And scores block. Whew. I have enough support to get 4 players up there, make one blitz and one hit, free up my blitzer to run it in. 2 turns left, 1-1.

I kick off to Lowkey, my Ko'd players have returned. I tie up his line and run at his cage. I make some hits, pushing the ball carrier back into the cage. One catcher is free out on the left. If i can just get hold of the ball, and throw a crossfield pass.... turn 16, I get a one dice on the ball carrier, having blitzed in. I get the knockdown, and it rolls back onto my blitzer, who picks it up! Any other time, that would be great, but he can't throw, as he has blitzed. Bugger. End game, 1-1.

A good game, nice and tight, the blizzard limiting 2 teams who'd much rather be running and passing (probably my humans more than the undead) all game. The dice were pretty fair for the most part (although I had a good run of double skulls in the first half burn my rerolls, but it was balanced by having less skulls later on), but my armour dice were awful. Considering I was hitting just as much as lowkey, and against AV7 players with mighty blow players, I'd expected more than just 2 CAS for the game (not even a KO!). Maybe it makes up for injuring 3 dwarves earlier in the season, but my injury dice were awful, whereas lowkey's were the better side of average. It was annoying that my best players were out for half the game, but that's how it goes sometimes. Was a good game though, with the blizzard creating interesting (and challenging) tactical decisions for both teams. GG lowkey!
So let's see who we'll be up against next season...

'So lads, we're not getting promoted'

'What? Awww - I was looking forward to some squishy elves'

'And I've got some good news and some bad news'

'Errr...What's the good news?'

'There will definitely be an elf team in division 2'

'Yey! But - whats the bad news?'

'Well, there'll also be a rematch against the Red Skull Reavers coached by that infernal Weasel-man, and most likely a rematch against the Altdorf Army XI, who I know many of you are related to, but we need more violence against them next season than our last match-up'

'So Chaos and Humans again for us, but at least an elf team?'

'Well, dark elves, so not exactly weak. And they like to stab people'

'Bloody hell. Keep your armour on boys, we're going to need to keep our strength up for next season'

...Which is a nice way of saying I got my first stat-up for this team. General Zod, who has maimed a good number of players in his time with block/tackle/mighty blow has gained +1 Str. He is my new 'best player'. And will probably die first game next season. But still, +1Str on a blitzer! Handy. Also, I'll try to get in at least one 'kneel before Zod' line in if he kills anyone :-)